Tag Archives: Eric Cantor

Republicans now control both chambers of the legislative body for the first time since the 109th Congress (2005-2006). Christians now comprise an overwhelming 92% of the new Congress.

Before you get all excited by that number, you should know that the 114th Congress is only slightly more Christian than the last one. And we already know how the 113th Congress performed.

That being said, the new Congress is much more Christian than Americans in general, with significantly fewer atheists and agnostics (“religiously unaffiliated”). The 114th Congress is also less Jewish than the 113th and 112th Congresses, but more Jewish than the U.S. population.

**Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz) is the only “religiously unaffiliated” member of the new Congress.

Some other facts about the religious composition of the new Congress:

1. Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian

300 of the 301 Republicans in the new Congress are Christian.

The one non-Christian Republican is Jewish freshman Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York’s 1st District, who will have far less seniority than the one Jewish Republican to serve in the 113th Congress, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who was defeated in his district’s GOP primary.

67% or two-thirds (202 members) of the Republicans in the 114th Congress are Protestant.

27% or about ¼ (81) are Catholic;.

5% (14) are Mormon.

2. Democrats are less Christian, more Jewish and other

Of the 234 Democrats in the 114th Congress, 44% (104) are Protestant.

35% (83) are Catholic

12% (27) are Jewish

1% (2) are Mormon

2 are Buddhist, 2 are Muslim, one is Hindu and one is religiously unaffiliated.

7 members of the 114th Congress are ordained ministers. The number of ordained clergy in Congress has not fluctuated greatly in recent years.

A political earthquake just happened in Virginia’s 7th Congressional district.

Last Tuesday, June 3, 2014, pro-amnesty RINO Congressman and House majority leader Eric Cantor was defeated in the Republican Primary election by an unknown, David Brat, despite having outspent Brat by a whopping 4,333% of $5.2m to Brat’s $120,000.

Dr. David Bratis an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, who had had seminary training.

To top it off, as reported by Dan Roberts for The Guardian, June 11, 2014, despite being a Tea Party candidate, Brat had received relatively little help from national Tea Party groups.His win shows the continued strength of grassroots feeling against Washington establishment candidates, a mood that may yet dominate the rest of Obama’s second term in the White House.

With more than three-quarters of precincts reporting by shortly after 8pm, which showed Brat ahead by 55% to 45%, the Associated Press predicted that Brat would comfortably take the seat, almost certainly forcing Cantor out of his position as a top Washington powerbroker for the party.

It is possible, though unlikely, that Cantor could run as a write-in candidate for the relatively safe Republican House seat in Virginia’s 7th district, which neighbors Richmond.

But his defeat by Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor, will send shockwaves through a party leadership that thought it had survived the 2014 primary election season with relatively limited damage from the Tea Party.

In Tuesday’s primary election in South Carolina, for example, Senator Lindsey Graham comfortably beat six separate Tea Party challengers and avoided a run-off election by gaining more than 50% of the vote.

Cantor, who was already seen as among the more conservative members of the House leadership, had been widely expected to win his primary comfortably. He heavily outspent his opponent with a relatively negative campaign pointing out Brat’s lack of experience.

But Brat successfully criticized Cantor’s support for immigration reform and financial compromise efforts such as extending the debt ceiling and budget authority.

Brat’s win may all but guarantee that Democrat priorities such as immigration reform will not pass the Republican-controlled House in future as its leaders seek to deter future Tea Party challenges.

In November’s election for the House seat, Brat will face Democratic nominee Jack Trammell, also a professor at Randolph-Macon College.

Please help ensure David Brat will defeat Democrat Jack Trammel in this November’s mid-term election.

Two Arkansas Republicans, Tim Griffin of Little Rock and Rick Crawford of Jonesboro, joined 78 of their colleagues in correspondence addressed to House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, advocating for a showdown this Fall over the “Affordable Care Act” (even though it is anything but affordable-what a misnomer!), requesting the de-funding of Obamacare. In a letter they wrote it provided, “We urge you to affirmatively de-fund the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare in any relevant appropriations bill brought to the House floor. . .including any continuing appropriations bill.”

Of course, the Democrats allege that the attempt to de-fund Obamacare is an attempt to shut down the government. Griffin and/or Crawford indicated that they are not calling for such a shutdown, and that the letter does not ask for a shutdown. Griffin elaborated that , “The letter does not advocate for a government shutdown: You won’t find those words anywhere in the letter, just like you can’t find any of the lower costs or economic benefits President Obama and Nancy Pelosi attribute to Obamacare.” Crawford said, “I believe that rushing ahead with $1.3 trillion in new entitlement spending in the middle of a debt crisis is irresponsible and the letter I signed expresses my desire for House leadership to consider using the appropriations process as a mechanism to move toward stopping this madness.” By way of background, Congress has not enacted appropriations bills needed to keep the government operating beyond the end of the current fiscal year on September 30th; in the past, they turned to a continuing resolution that would temporarily fund the government.

Rep. Mark Meadows, House Republican from North Carolina who organized, drafted and/or strategized the letter, said that de-funding Obamacare by the end of September is imperative, inasmuch as enrollment begins on October 1st in state-based health care exchanges, which is a major component of the health reform law. Rep. Meadows said during an interview with Mike Huckabee, radio host, that “The American people are with us on this particular issue.”

Since the House holds the purse strings, it will be interesting to see how this plays out; one can only hope that the madness of Obamacare ends!

well it seems our justice dept. run by none other THAN that rock star eric holder had decided to hijack about 20 phone lines belonging to ap. in April and may of 2012. kind of funny now that ap has been the target the media is up in arms. For years while justice and the admin have abused the american public it seemed they could care less, Well anyway if this is what it takes to shine the light on the vermin so be it. Benghazi, i.r.s., a.p. seems like 3 strikes YOU’RE out in the ole ball game.

Politicians versus press: Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference on Tuesday to address the story that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months worth of journalists phone records

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Eric Holder points finger at his DEPUTY who secretly obtained journalist’s phone records as Obama is forced to say he has ‘confidence’ in the Attorney General

Justice Department obtained records listing incoming and outgoing calls and duration of calls for more than 20 telephone lines used by journalists

Lines included the main number used by reporters in the House of Reps press gallery and general AP numbers in Washington and New York

Stems from AP article talking reporting a thwarted terror attack

Attorney General Eric Holder said he had recused himself from the investigation into the leak to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest

Attorney General Eric Holder went on the defensive on Tuesday explaining why the Justice Department secretly obtained two months worth of reporters’ telephone records in an ‘unprecedented’ search for a confidential source.

‘This was a very serious leak and a very, very serious leak,’ Holder said at a press conference explaining the department’s actions which have been criticized for going against the constitutional right to a free press.

Holder said that he recused himself from the making the controversial decision to subpoena the phone records of Associated Press journalists, saying that it was made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

He said that he was ‘confident that the people involved in this … followed all applicable Department of Justice regulations’ even though he claimed not to actually know the details of the decision-making process as a result of his recusal.

President Obama was forced to follow Holder’s press conference with the release of a statement saying that the incident does not shake his faith in his close friend and the country’s top legal adviser. (Whoopsie)

‘The president has confidence in the attorney general,’ press secretary Jay Carney said.

The controversy came when the Associated Press reported that two months worth of reporters’ telephone records without their knowledge, obtaining a wide breadth of records that had nothing to do with the leak of information that they were concerned about.

The Justice Department has spoken in the past about how they were upset over the leak of information about a foiled al Qaeda plot where the terrorist group planned to detonate a bomb on a plane bound for the United States.

‘I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, it is within the top two or three most serious leaks I’ve ever seen,’ Holder said.

It put the American people at risk. That’s not hyperbole. It put the American people at risk.’

That isn’t enough to satisfy critics, as top Republicans are already calling for Holder’s resignation over the incident.

‘Because Attorney General Holder has so egregiously violated the public trust, the president should ask for his immediate resignation,’ Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said.

‘If President Obama does not, the message will be unmistakable: The President of the United States believes his administration is above the Constitution and does not respect the role of a free press.’

The records listed journalists’ incoming and outgoing calls, as well as the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut, and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.

News of the probe into one of the largest news organizations in the world immediately sparked outrage among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

‘Whether it is secretly targeting patriotic Americans participating in the electoral progress or reporters exercising their First Amendment rights, these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama Administration,’ Doug Heye said.

‘Obtaining a broad range of telephone records in order to ferret out a government leaker is an unacceptable abuse of power,’ said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. ‘Freedom of the press is a pillar of our democracy, and that freedom often depends on confidential communications between reporters and their sources.’

AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation.

He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

‘There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,’ Pruitt wrote in a letter of protest to Holder.

‘These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.’

The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot.

The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP’s source, which he denied.

He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an ‘unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.’

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt’s letter and attorneys for the AP.

The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Last night, Jan. 1, 2013, at 10:45 pm, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, by a final vote of 257 to 167.

The House vote came less than 24 hours after the Senate had overwhelmingly approved the bill 89 to 8, with both parties’ support. The bill now goes to the POS for his signature. Instead of signing the bill, he’s already left D.C. to resume his vacation in Honolulu which was so rudely interrupted by the fiscal cliff negotiations. [snark]

The Fiscal Cliff deal:

The top tax rate increases from 35% to 40% on annual income over $450,000 for married couples and $400,000 for single people. This is the first time in more than two decades that a broad tax increase has been approved with GOP support.

“Temporary” Bush tax cuts for couples making less than $450,000 and individuals making less than $400,000 per year are made “permanent” (which means “until Congress changes their mind”).

More than 100 million “middle class” families (those earning less than $250,000 a year) will be protected from significant income tax increases set to take effect this month, but their payroll taxes will rise with the expiration of a temporary tax cut adopted two years ago.

No estate taxes on inheritance of $5 million, or $10 million for married couples.

Federal dairy policies will be extended through September, averting a threatened doubling of milk prices.

Extension of unemployment benefits to 2 million people for another year.

Automatic cuts to the Pentagon and other agencies that had been set to take effect today will be delayed for two months.

Pay raise for members of Congress, which was effectuated by Obama’s executive order, is nixed.

Automatic spending cuts (sequestration) from last year’s debt ceiling deal are postponed until March 2013, which means — oh joy — there’ll be a Fiscal Cliff II next month!

The Bad:

Buried in the fine print of the 150-page deal are some New Year’s gifts to some of Washington’s favorite cronies. Under the plan, the federal government would eat nearly $100 billion in forgone tax revenue over the next two years by extending special tax credits for select businesses that had been set to expire:

$430 million for Hollywood through “special expensing rules” to encourage TV and film production in the United States. Producers can “expense” up to $15 million of costs for their projects. All this for a film industry that enjoyed a record box office last year.

$331 million for railroads by allowing short-line and regional operators to claim a tax credit up to 50% of the cost to maintain tracks that they own or lease.

$222 million for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands through returned excise taxes collected by the federal government on rum produced in the islands and imported to the mainland.

$70 million for NASCAR by extending a “7-year cost recovery period for certain motorsports racing track facilities.”

$59 million for algae growers through tax credits to encourage production of “cellulosic biofuel” at up to $1.01 per gallon.

$4 million for electric motorcycle makers by expanding an existing green-energy tax credit for buyers of plug-in vehicles to include electric motorbikes.

The Absurd:

This is how farcical the fiscal cliff brouhaha was: Members of the U.S. Senate had only 3 minutes to read the 154-page fiscal cliff bill and budget score, before they voted 89-8 to approve the bill. Senators received the bill at approximately 1:36 AM on Jan. 1, 2013 – a mere three minutes before they voted to approve it at 1:39 AM. I’ve taken longer to read the instructions for my new cell phone.

House Republicans also violated their pledge to allow three days for the public to read the legislation before they would vote on a bill. This was a promise the GOP made to voters before the 2010 elections.

The Ugly:

151 Republicans in the House voted “no,” which meant the GOP tally fell far short of a majority of the GOP caucus. That broke a long-standing preference by House Speaker John Boehner to advance only bills that could draw the support of a majority of his Republican members. So Boehnerhimself cast a rare vote: He supported the bill. So did Rep. Paul Ryan(Wis.), the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate last year.

40 House Republicans voted for the bill, including such GOP leaders on tax-and-spending policy as Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Ronald H. Johnson (Wis.), a tea party star.

The Good:

Senate Republicans who voted against the bill include tea party favorites Rand Paul (Ky.) and Mike Lee (Utah), as well as Marco Rubio (Fla).

The Really Bad:

Regardless of one’s political affiliation or beliefs, from an economic and fiscal perspective, the cliff deal has accomplished nothing. Here’s why:

The bill’s proposed spending cuts of $15 billion are less than 2% of the federal government’s deficit.

The bill’s tax increases will raise $620 billion over the next ten years — roughly $62 billion in new tax revenue per year.

$62 billion in new tax revenue per year is less than 6% of the $1+ trillion deficit the Obama regime has incurred every year for the past four years.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the fiscal cliff bill will cause the national debt to be $4 trillion higher by 2022 than if all of the cliff’s tax increases and spending cuts had been allowed to take effect.

Ever since the midterm 2010 elections voted in a Republican majority to the U.S. House of Representatives, the House has voted 30 times to repeal Obamacare — the misnamed “Affordable” Patient Care Act that is anything but affordable. Nearly 75% of Obamacare costs will fall on the backs of the middle class — Americans who make less than $120,000 a year.

It turns out those votes were just symbolic sap thrown to pacify Conservatives because the GOP leaders knew their repeals had NO chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate and, even if the Senate approved it, the measure would be vetoed by the POS in the White House.

But the Constitution does give the House the “purse strings,” i.e., control over spending. And federal funding of Obamacare is due to expire in two months, on September 30th. One would think this should be the perfect opportunity for the House to kill Obamacare by cutting off its blood supply funding.

The Three Eunuchs (from l to r): Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy

Doug Book reports for the Western Center for Journalism that the Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives — Speaker John Boehner, Majority leader Eric Cantor and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy — have decided that the Party will do NOTHING to defund ObamaCare:

Yet weak knees on the part of Republican leadership should come as no surprise to interested conservatives as we were warned by Iowa Congressman Peter King last year that “…the decision was made by leadership to avoid the prospect of a showdown with the president or Harry Reid that could result in a potential shutdown of government.” (1)

And it was in February that John Boehner nearly suffered whiplash, ducking a reporter’s question about the congressman’s ObamaCare funding intentions in an upcoming budget resolution. Boehner’s non-answer answer: “We are opposed to Obamacare. We have voted to repeal it. That also included $700 million in tax hikes, about $2.6 trillion in new spending. We’re going to continue to take all the actions that we can to make sure that we do not ruin the best health care delivery system in the world, bankrupt our nation and, most importantly, get in the way of job creation in America.”

But apparently the Speaker and his colleagues are NOT so opposed to ObamaCare or worried about job creation that they are willing to rescind the $80 billion or so earmarked for the “healthcare” law by the last congress, or the $115 billion already authorized for “additional appropriation.” (2)

One hundred and twenty seven House Republicans signed a letter addressed to Boehner and Cantor by Michelle Bachman and Jim Jordan. In it they wrote, “…we urge you not to bring to the House floor in the 112th Congress any legislation that provides or allows funds to implement ObamaCare…” “We also urge you to take legislative steps necessary to immediately rescind all ObamaCare implementation funds.” (3)

House leadership has the authority to legislatively package ObamaCare funding in any manner it wishes.Were they to place it with truly necessary “must pass” funding legislation, it would force Senate Democrats to make a very dodgy political decision before the election. As Congressman King puts it, Democrats would have… to “…defend Obamacare as more important than all of the rest of the functions of government combined.” (1)

But once again, John Boehner and the other shining pillars of Republican resolve are intent upon snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. For although the American public is solidly in favor of Republicans defunding ObamaCare, political caution MUST take precedence over the Constitution or a congressional oath of office!

Should Obama win in November, expect Speaker Boehner to be provided round-the-clock, Secret Service protection. Barack couldn’t afford anything happening to one of his most valued supporters.

There’s a new conspiracy theory winging around the Internet, and it’s a doozy.

It is claimed Obama and U.S. elites are converging on Denver, Colorado, this week in an effort to escape some impending catastrophe by seeking shelter in that rumored huge underground military base beneath the Denver International Airport.

So what’s this big doomsday catastrophe that is supposed to strike America this week?

Comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin) is a long-period comet discovered by Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010 […] At the time of discovery, the comet had an apparent magnitude of 19.5, making it about 150,000 times fainter than can be seen with the naked eye. The discoverer, Leonid Elenin, estimates that the comet nucleus is 3–4 km [1.86 to 2.5 miles] in diameter. […]

C/2010 X1 made its closest approach to the Sun on 10 September 2011 at a distance of […] 44,840,000 mi). Assuming it has not disintegrated, will make its closest approach to the Earth on 16 October 2011, at a distance of […] 21,730,000 mi […] at a relative velocity of [53,438 miles per hour].

Happily, Elenin is or has already disintegrated. On August 29, 2011, UniverseToday reports that:

Astronomers monitoring Comet Elenin have noticed the comet has decreased in brightness the past week, and the coma is now elongating and diffusing. Some astronomers predict the comet will disintegrate and not survive perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun.

On August 19, a massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection hit the comet, which may have been the beginning of the end for the much ballyhooed lump of ice and dirt.

“We’ve been following it in the STEREO spacecraft images and a number of amateurs have been following it in their telescopes,” said Australian amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave, author of the Astroblog website. “Shortly after the coronal mass ejection the comet flared up and you could see some beautiful details in the tail, with the tail was twisting about in the solar wind. But shortly after that Earth- bound amateurs reported a huge decrease in the intensity of the comet. We think it may presage a falling apart of the comet.” […]

Elenin’s mass is smaller than average and its trajectory will take it no closer than 34 million km (21 million miles) of Earth as it circles the Sun. It will make its closest approach to Earth on October 16th, but be closest to the Sun on Sept. 10.

Australian amateur Michael Mattiazzo has been taking images of the comet (see his website, Southern Comets) and he has noticed that the nucleus appears to be elongating. When that occurs, usually the comet disintegrates or splits apart. Below is an animation Mattiazzo created from images he took of Comet Elenin on August 19, 22, 23, 27 & 29.

Animation of 5 images taken Aug 19,22,23,27,29 displaying the nucleus of Comet Elenin in the process of disintegrating. Credit: Michael Mattiazzo.

The second “theory” is that the elites “know” that there’ll be a massive earthquake in the Central USA — the famous New Madrid faultline.

As George Ure, who loves catastrophes because they help to sell his web-bot predictions, puts it: The New Madrid quake will be bigger than the 1812 quake! That quake will simultaneously or “shortly after trigger the long-worried La Palme/Cumbre Vieja undersea landslide which could wipe out a good portion of the US Eastern Seaboard.”

What gives so many conspiracy theories a looney-tune reputation is their lack of or utter resistance to empirical verification. If U.S. elites really are going to Denver, surely there must be some way to confirm or disconfirm that.

Yes. Obama indeed will be in Denver tomorrow, after his campaign appearances in California. He is in Silicon Valley today.

What about the members of Congress?

In 2006, the Sunlight Network launched the Punch Clock Campaign in an effort to get members of Congress to post their daily schedules online. Several members, either as a result of the campaign or independently, now post schedules online. According to SourceWatch.org, these are the Representatives and Senators who post their schedules online:

I clicked on the link for John Boehner, but it brought me to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s website, which shows that the calendar for this month, September, has this entire work-week (Monday-Friday, Sept. 26-30) as “Constituent Work Week,” which means the Congress-critters won’t be in D.C.

Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont)’s Daily Schedule website shows his schedule for next Monday, October 7, but nothing for this week.

I couldn’t access the websites of John Doolittle, Kirsten Gillibrand, Denny Rehberg, Jan Schakowsky, while Congressman Alcee Hasting’s (D-Fla) website is woefully dated because it only shows his schedule for 2009!

So the mystery deepens….

No matter. If a big catastrophe is coming, it’s too late for us to find underground shelter anyway.